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With restrictions easing on COVID-19, many employees who have been working at home are beginning to return to their workplace. The following column was in The Suburban in October 2010.

An acquaintance of mine, employed by the human-development centre of a large corporation, is in charge of seeing that employees follow the company’s proper dress code. When she was first hired a number of years ago, the job was not difficult. Men wore suits, sport jackets, blazers, or sweaters with non-clashing trousers, along with a clean shirt or turtleneck. Ties were not mandatory. Socks had to be worn and shoes shouldn’t be scuffed.

Women wore dresses or blouses and sweaters with skirts at a length at which they could sit comfortably in public. Conservative walking shoes were suggested and wearing no stockings was acceptable in warm weather. Almost everyone adhered to the rules. Fridays were declared a dress-down day. On these days, jeans and other more casual clothing were allowed.

After a court ruling decided that employees could wear religious clothing in the workplace, it seems other employees felt that they were being discriminated by not being allowed to wear anything they wanted.

So now my acquaintance encounters employees dressed in clothing that should be seen instead at the beach, in the back yard, at dance clubs, exercise sessions, and at sports contests. She often sees clothing that reveals too much cleavage. She has to inform her staff that exposing your back, your chest, your feet, your stomach, or your underwear is inappropriate.

Many of the employees wear unpressed, wrinkled, torn, dirty, or threadbare clothing. She has to reprimand employees for wearing tank tops and T-shirts with offensive words, logos, illustrations, cartoons, or slogans written all over them. Also wearing halter tops, tops with bare shoulders, and sweatshirts is unacceptable. Even though the male employees are not complaining, short, tight skirts that ride halfway up the thigh, mini-skirts, and spaghetti-strap dresses do not belong in the office.

In addition, flashy athletic shoes, thongs, flip-flops, slippers, and any shoes with an open toe should not be part of the workplace.

Employees on occasion wear too much jewelry, makeup, perfume, and cologne, and exhibit visible body piercing and tattoos. She conscientiously informs employees when they’ve violated the dress code and most after they feel they’ve made their point will return to the accepted wearing apparel. She is afraid of firing employees if they continue to not abide by the dress code for fear that it may end up in lawsuits.

Last year she was offered a similar position with a private school. She figured it would be easier dealing with students and parents when it came to enforcing dress codes. She never took the job and told me she’s glad she didn’t because of the following dilemma that has now come to light.

School officials across the U.S. are banning students from wearing breast cancer awareness bracelets that say, “I love boobies.” They are not insensitive to the cause, but they think the phrase on the popular $4 wristbands is offensive. They believe there are more proper ways to bring this plight to the attention of people. However, Shanney Jo Darden, who founded Keep A Breast Foundation, the California-based non-profit group behind the bands, thinks that schools are wrong to ban them.

“That's the whole idea. It's getting people to talk about breast cancer,” she said. “The bracelet is doing what it's meant to do. It's making people talk. It's getting people to share their feelings about how this disease has impacted their life.”

Some school boards have circumvented their dress code stipulations by permitting students to turn the bracelets inside-out when they're on the school grounds.

Still unfrazzled and desperately trying to carry out her functions, my acquaintance revealed the following incident:

One day last month, as she was stepping onto the elevator, a man sloppily dressed in washed out torn jeans with a loud golf shirt of the Rodney Dangerfield Caddyshack era got on with her. Assuming her responsibilities, she scolded him.

“Dressed a little casually today, aren't we?”

The man replied, “That's one benefit of owning the company.”

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